by Sierra Dean
I’d take my punishment when the time came, if it meant keeping the world around long enough for it to matter. Considering the deep shit we were currently in, if Harold turned on me, it would be the least of my problems.
I fumbled with the remote, which was still in my hand, and flipped it upside down so I didn’t engage the kill switch. Lily had been kind enough to make the thing idiot-proof. Red button, death. Green button, freedom. I lifted the cover on the green button and punched my thumb down on it. A soft beep and click came from the device, and Harold quickly removed it from his neck, dropping it to the ground almost delicately, like he didn’t want to break it. Good, that thing was probably super expensive.
He moved to stand in front of me, and for a fraction of a second I worried I’d made the wrong choice. Then he blocked the path between the demons and myself and puffed himself up so he looked almost as big and impressive as the smaller red demon.
“Oh, look, he’s preening,” bellowed the black demon. “How charming. Does it make your human girlfriend wet? Is she writhing for it? I can show you a thing or two, human girlfriend. I will make you wriggle like a worm on a hook.”
“Okay, first of all, ew,” I retorted.
“No? Then I will simply gut you like a fish.” The way his voice changed on those last words, dropping all pretense of humor and becoming something hideous and soul-searingly scary, made me bite my tongue and not reply further. This wasn’t going to be a let’s trade barbs with villains kind of night.
“Run,” Harold said to me.
I wanted to. Oh, God, I wanted nothing more than to run away and never look back. To leave Harold and these two demons here to hopefully crush the hooded cult underfoot, and to just pray it all took care of itself.
The problem was it wouldn’t take care of itself.
There was an open portal to Hell, and these two were a taste of what was coming, which meant there were certainly worse things down there behind them. I didn’t particularly want to see what was on their tails.
I liked the world how it was, even when it could be an ugly, messed-up place. And if I ran, I wasn’t heading towards safety or freedom. I was fleeing from something inevitable and horrifying. No, I couldn’t do that. Running would just lead to a life of running, and then what? I’d die eventually anyway, after watching everything I loved burn to ashes around me.
This wasn’t my first apocalypse rodeo.
“No,” I told him. “If you’re staying, I’m staying.”
A screech of tires sounded at our end of the alley, and a moment later an entire tactical unit decked in bulletproof gear and helmets poured out of the van. With them all dressed head to toe like Black Ops agents, I couldn’t tell which one was Tyler.
The laser sights on their weapons created eerie red lines through the smoke, which had grown to envelop us. Still, I had no problem seeing the two demons looming over the whole scene.
“Don’t shoot the short one,” I commanded, knowing they’d hear me. “He’s with us. Red and Big Black are all yours.”
Someone thrust an AK-47 into my hands as the unit advanced towards the demons, and I checked the weapon, disengaged the safety, and switched it to full auto.
Pew-pew-pew, motherfuckers.
The earth-shaking laugh of the biggest demon rattled windows in the nearby buildings and turned my knees to jello. Was I sure I couldn’t run away? It seemed like such an awesome idea right now.
A few of the highly trained agents nearest me also paused their advance and seemed to second-guess whatever life decisions had brought them to this point. I did not blame them one bit.
I suspected, if we survived this, more than one of them might be submitting a request to be sent to a nice, quiet field office somewhere in Kansas, and I would approve each and every one of those requests.
If we lived.
“No one draws first blood on the demons,” I heard Tyler shout from the front of the group. “You wait until my word. I don’t want a stray bullet being the thing that ends the goddamn world, am I clear?”
“Yes, sir,” the rest of the group shouted in unison.
I kept close to Harold, not using him as a shield per se, but certainly not complaining about the extra element of security he was providing me. The two demons, realizing we were coming to them, had stopped moving altogether and were simply waiting for us to walk right into their open arms.
“Sir, what do we do about the civilians?” one asked.
He was referring to the cloaked idiots who had set this whole ball rolling. I answered before Tyler could. “Under the Apocalypse Code, they are guilty of irredeemable actions against humanity. They can be killed, by my authority.” To make them understand I wasn’t fucking around, I lifted my gun, trained the sight until I had one hooded head in the center of my scope, and pulled the trigger.
Bam.
“But aim for the head, because they might all be vampires.”
I knew Tyler’s words about first blood didn’t apply to the grunts. Demons didn’t care a whit for their underlings, and sure enough, they simply stood back and watched the carnage unfold as the remaining five grunts bellowed and charged at us, fists flying.
They were unarmed, but if they were vampires, that would be enough to evenly match them with the strength of our resources.
The problem with them running at us in close quarters was that there was no easy way to gauge a headshot, and the agents were all hyperaware they couldn’t let their rounds hit one of the demons. Tyler had made that very clear. Shots hit the charging cultists in the belly and legs, but barely seemed to slow them down.
Soon they had gained ground, and hand-to-hand combat was the only remaining option, lest friendly fire become another major concern.
All the agents were equipped with handguns, but you had to be able to reach your secondary weapon if you were going to use it, and they were so busy fighting for their lives they couldn’t exactly go for their backup pieces. A cloaked figure leaped on an agent nearest me, tackling him to the concrete. A muffled pop-pop-pop told me the agent had been able to get his gun out, but it hadn’t seemed to make much of a difference.
I saw a flash of fangs, and it was all I needed.
Some of them, at least, were vampires.
“Hey, fuckwad,” I challenged.
The vampire looked up at me, and I could see her face clearly. Dark hair was stuck to her forehead and cheeks, and her eyes had gone a solid black like the demon’s, the urge to feed taking over all other instincts.
I lifted my gun and shot her right between the eyes.
She flew back across the alley, hitting the nearest wall and landing in a heap. I helped the agent to his feet, feeling the tremble in his hand he probably didn’t want me to acknowledge.
“You’re okay,” I told him.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
I let the ma’am thing slide. He could call me Bessie the Cow if it made him feel good.
“Keep your head up,” I reminded him. “This shit isn’t done yet.”
We were so far from being through the worst of it. Harold had one of the cloaked men held up against the wall, the guy’s once-handsome face now bloated and purple as he struggled to breathe. If he was choking, it meant he needed oxygen, which meant he wasn’t a vampire.
Under different circumstances I would have told the demon to stand down, but fuck it. These guys all deserved to die. The humans among them were about to learn the hard way how short a mortal life could be. And when it came to the vampires, I would deal with the West Coast Tribunal later. As far as I was concerned they had their own damned explaining to do.
There wasn’t a hell of a lot that went on within the vampire community the Tribunal didn’t know about, and I had a hard time believing they were completely ignorant of the fact several vamps were running around town buying up all sorts of demon-summoning supplies.
That had to trigger some alarm bells somewhere, didn’t it?
I did a quick scan of the area around me
, my eyes burning from the smoke, making it hard to tell where all our men were and how many of the vampires were still around. I’d taken out two, and Harold obviously had a third well in hand—no pun intended—which meant there were three of them at worst.
A dark lump on the alley floor told me a fourth had gone down at some point. Two left.
As I was craning my neck to see through the smoke, something grabbed me from behind and dragged me to the ground. Before I was able to react, my attacker had jerked the rifle out of my hands and was sitting on top of me, both hands firmly wrapped around my throat.
I looked up into the unfamiliar face of a male vampire, his lips contorted into a sick kind of pleasure as his fingers tightened around my throat.
For a brief moment I thought, Well, shit, is this how I’m going to die?
It wasn’t as bad as being drowned in a sewer I guess, but it still lacked the excitement and panache of the exit I’d hoped to make. I grabbed his wrists, trying to loosen his literal stranglehold on my neck, but I couldn’t get him off me. He was stronger than me, and I didn’t have any supernatural strength to fall back on anymore. But I was also not about to let some demon-worshipping asshole be the last thing I saw on this planet.
I’d beaten worse than him before.
I just wasn’t sure how I was going to do it this time.
Black spots started to blot out my vision, and I wheezed helplessly. My throat burned. He was obviously taking his time and enjoying this, because he was strong enough he could have crushed my throat in a single squeeze if he wanted to.
I’d seen vampires do that before.
My temples throbbed, and my whole body jerked, attempting desperately to fight my way free of him.
This would be such a fucking pathetic way for me to die. I was so mad at myself right now.
Then everything was red and warm, and my neck felt mercifully free.
Was I dead?
I licked my lips and realized, no, I was very much alive, and my face was covered in blood.
Someone grabbed hold of me and hoisted me to my feet. I sucked in big lungfuls of air as I wiped away the thick smear of blood dripping into my eyes. The body of the vampire, a fresh gunshot wound in the back of his skull, was lying still on the concrete. I hadn’t even heard the shot go off.
I stared back into the face of the man I had saved only moments earlier.
“Keep your head up,” he told me with a smile. “Shit’s not done yet.”
Then he was gone into the smoke, my guardian angel whose name I didn’t know.
That guy was super-duper getting a raise when we got out of this.
My throat hurt, my eyes burned from the blood smear, and everything had an echoey, surreal quality thanks to my brain having briefly been deprived of oxygen.
I found my rifle a few feet away and collected it, and by a quick count I saw we had actually taken care of all the cultists. The only thing left now was the demons.
And the gate.
Someone still needed to close the gate.
I glanced down the alley then up the side walls and realized there was an access ladder on one of the buildings that would take me up to the roof. I could conceivably get around both demons unnoticed.
Heaven help me, it was time to do something super fucking stupid.
Chapter Eight
The agents and Harold were involved in something of a standoff with the two demons.
It was clear that Red and Big Black didn’t seem particularly concerned about the group at their feet, and they certainly weren’t put off by their dead acolytes, but at some point soon they would get annoyed about their path being blocked and all hell would break loose.
Which, if I didn’t fuck this up, was precisely what I was hoping to stop.
I slipped the rifle over my shoulder by its strap and skirted around the melee, hoping the demons would stay distracted and the smoke would help mask what I was up to. The buildings were taller than the two demons, so if I could just get to the top, I’d easily be able to pass by without them seeing me.
That meant I had to climb the side of one building pretty much right in front of them though.
“Get them talking,” I whispered, counting on Tyler to help me to make this work. “I’m going to close the gate.” I had to hope it was as easy as breaking a salt line, just in charcoal instead. Interrupt the circle, close the door.
If it was any harder, we were all fucked, but I didn’t see anyone else offering up a brilliant plan.
Tyler swore softly under his breath. Banter wasn’t really in his wheelhouse. Harold must have heard my request, because he spoke up before Tyler could.
“Belphegor, this is beneath you. You can do better than this small town.”
Big Black, now confirmed to be the real Belphegor, made a scoffing sound. “Are you worried you will no longer be able to rule the weak-minded using my name? You useless dung-cunt, I am here to take my proper throne. I will make kings of these sad and pathetic humans, and they will worship me like a god.”
I was no expert on demonology, but I’d looked up Belphegor after we took Harold into custody. His forte was giving get-rich-quick ideas to those looking to make money with little-to-no effort. I couldn’t say for certain, but I was willing to bet the ShamWow had been a Belphegor specialty.
He would be right at home in a town like Los Angeles where everyone wanted to be rich and famous but rarely wanted to do an honest day’s work. This was absolutely his ideal sandbox.
No wonder he’d been waiting at the door like an eager dog.
I made my way to the ladder, glad to have the big guy monologuing. This should keep him busy enough for me to get to the roof.
“I was not pretending to be you,” Harold protested. “I merely gave your name to keep from being bound.”
“Oh, so it’s okay for me to be bound?”
“There is no one here mighty enough to bind a Prince of Hell,” Harold countered, appealing to Belphegor’s ego. Good move, buddy.
I crested the edge of the building with my heart in my throat, convinced one of the demons would spot me, pluck me off the roof, and eat me whole. But nothing happened. I pulled myself up onto the top of the building and let my heartbeat steady, gathering my breath for the next stage of the plan.
I crawled on my hands and knees, going slow, slow, slower still as the tips of Belphegor’s wings appeared on my right. I was sure I had underestimated the height of the building and would look over and see his milky-white eyes staring at me.
The worst-case scenario didn’t come.
I ignored the bits of rock and glass on the rooftop that bit into my palms and delayed my progress. Finally I made it to the far side of the building and risked a peek over the edge.
Shit on a stick.
Have you ever seen an open portal to Hell?
No, of course you haven’t, because you have a nice, normal, sensible life and don’t throw yourself into situations that would lead to things like giant demons and gateways to Hell.
Everyone should be that smart.
The former charcoal outline on the alley floor was now a literal hole that looked like a cross between the opening of a volcano in Hawaii and the pits of Mordor in Lord of the Rings. It was a simmering, glowing cesspool, and I could feel the waves of heat coming off it from here.
Embers had started to eat away at the concrete, little chunks falling into the chasm below. But the weirdest part of it was that the thick lines from the ritual were still there, hovering in midair over the hellfire. They burned brightly, lit like barbeque coals, getting red hot briefly before settling back into an ashy gray. In the center of it all was the body of the captive victim. He appeared suspended, hovering over nothing, but the lines of the ritual circle kept him from falling into the pit below.
I had never seen anything like this.
I sat back from the edge of the building, gathering my thoughts. It was one thing to say you were going to close a portal to Hell, but that wasn’t th
e sort of activity that came with a handy how-to guide. To be honest, I hadn’t been sure what to expect, but I had been hoping I’d just need to smear their charcoal line with my toe and call it a night.
This was a lot more complicated than what I’d envisioned.
I sighed, steeling myself, and realized I had another major roadblock in my way before I even had to worry about the gate. I still needed to get back down to the alley.
Which meant, for the second time in two days, I had to fall off a building.
Hey, at least this time I’d be doing it to myself, rather than being tossed by Harold, but that was only the most minor relief, because at the Hotel Beverly I’d been able to fall into a pool. Here, it looked like the only thing available to break a twenty-foot fall was the open garbage can on the opposite side of the alley.
So, in order to save the world, I needed to jump off one roof, over the burning mouth of Hell, and into a stinky, festering, open garbage bin.
Best night ever, am I right?
I double-checked the safety on my rifle. The last thing I wanted to do was land wrong and accidentally shoot myself in the head. When I was sure I was as ready as could be anticipated, I took a deep breath and climbed up on the edge of the rooftop.
It was a good ten feet across, which would have been insane if I was hoping to jump from one roof to the other, but I just wanted to hit the garbage can, which meant a downwards trajectory was precisely what I needed.
I was hoping my moderate grasp on physics had thought this out the whole way through, otherwise I’d fall short and literally right into the open gate.
I’d seen The Rock do this a thousand times in movies, so it couldn’t be that hard.
“Fuck it, let’s go,” I announced to myself, forgetting everyone else could hear me thanks to the mic.
I confirmed the angle I needed then backed up about fifteen feet. I took a running start and vaulted myself off the edge of the roof, silently praying I hadn’t messed anything up.
I’d know for sure in about half a second.